Sony Planning ‘Cloud’ Saving w/ Upcoming PS3 Update?

To the cloud!... with your save files.

If a report by Kotaku is anything to go by, Sony has started spreading the word to developers that they plan to instate a new game saving feature with their upcoming PlayStation 3 firmware 3.60. The new firmware would allow PS3 users to save their game progress on a “cloud” remote server.

Cloud saving for the PS3 will not only free up hard-drive space from save game files, but it will also allow players to pull down their save progress to any other PS3 console since the saves are tethered to individual PSN accounts.

Cloud saving has been a rumored feature for the PlayStation 3 since 2009. However, there are some catches to cloud saving, or “Online Saving” as Sony is calling the feature. For starters, the service would only be available to PlayStation Plus subscribers, not the common PS3 user. Secondly, game developers are able to opt out from using the feature for their games since it “will allow save data with the copy prohibited attribute to be copied into the online storage.”

From a personal standpoint, I think this is a great idea. I’m a big Google Docs advocate because it allows me to never worry about losing all my word documents if my computer’s HD were to get wiped due to some unforeseen disaster. Everything is saved on a remote server that requires only my Gmail log-in and password to access them, no matter what computer I’m on. The same concept applies to this Online Saving feature on PS3. And for those with early PS3 models, the ones with relatively small HDs by today’s standards, you benefit from Online Saving because it will free up your HD from save files to instead be used for more meaningful downloads, i.e. full games on the PSN. There’s just that pesky PlayStation Plus membership requirement to worry about, if rumors are to be believed.

And that’s just it, Online Saving for the PS3 is still technically at rumor status. If more details about the service become available, we’ll be reporting on it.